Beautiful Mind opening

I chose to look at this film because of the similarity with my film- the schizophrenic protagonist.

The purpose of this film opening is to introduce the main character, the setting and atmosphere to the audience. The first line heard in the opening is "Mathematicians won the war", this is very striking to the audience and grabs their attention, but it also straight away tells us that the protagonist is a mathematician and that this element of him is central to the film. All in the first line.

The setting establishes the time period and the social status of the people there as it looks quite sophisticated. Also the music in the opening subtly adds to impression of the setting and atmosphere as it enhances the prestigious feel of the location. However this music does not fit perfectly with the speech of the professor and so as the camera pans round to the protagonist sitting alone at the very back of the room, I feel that the music fits more with him as he seems to be sitting peacefully alone, not concentrating on the speech. This establishes the character very well as it suggests that he perhaps can get lost in his own mind and not pay attention to things going on around him. 

This opening does not obviously give away the entire plot of the film, however is successfully hints and foreshadows possible events, for example the topic of war and secret messages. In addition it establishes the main character's personality and aura very quickly simply through music, position in the overall composition of the shots and body language which is very successful.